Highly Compressible Origami Bellows for Harsh Environments

Abstract

The design and testing of a highly compressible origami bellows for harsh environments is described. Several origami patterns are evaluated and the Kresling fold pattern was customized to constraints and selected for use in the bellows design. Origami bellows were prototyped in five different materials and tested in fatigue, thermal cycling, ablation, and radiation. Tested bellows show good fatigue life exceeding 100,000 cycles for some materials and resilience to potential harsh environmental conditions such as thermal cycling, abrasion, and high radiation. The bellows can be designed to fit within a given inner and outer diameter and stroke length depending on the design requirements. The origami bellows shows promise for space application and as an adequate replacement for current metal bellows due to its high compressibility and low mass.